THE CREATIVE PROCESS PART 8-THUMBNAILS

Thumbnail pages can be looked at as a blueprint or a map to where the finished comic page will end up. They are used as a way to work out the overall design of the page. The page design is a bit more complex then it may seem. For one, it has to convey an idea - tell a story. I view it as how a writer would write a paragraph. An introductory sentence followed by the main idea. Finally the concluding sentence leads you to the next paragraph. Visually, this starts as an establishing panel, followed by panels depicting the action of the page. The last panel is meant to lead you to the next page:

Sometimes the designs change a little by the time the penciled are finished, but the idea remains:

The overall design has to move the reader's eye through the page. This is done with the "Z" principle:

From Will Eisner's Comics & Sequential Art

Without some kind of design, a story can not be properly told. Thumbnails help work out that design. 

LIFE DRAWING PART 7

After the skeleton, muscles make up the bulk of a human being's anatomy. As far as comic books are concerned, the figures are usually pure, exaggerated muscles as if everyone was a weightlifter on steroids. In reality, people aren't built like that. However, everyones muscle structure is the same. An understanding of muscle anatomy is essential if someone wants to draw figures.

There are a lot of very good books which detail muscle anatomy. My favorites are by George Bridgman and Burne Hogarth.

I also have an anatomic model that I use:

There is nothing more important, especially when drawing super heroes, than knowing the anatomy of the figure.

KONG: KING OF SKULL ISLAND #3

In the fall of 2007, I was contacted by Markosia, who I was drawing Heretic for. They needed help with another project.  Dan O' Connor, who was drawing a King Kong limited series for them wasn't going to be able to work on two issues and they asked me if I'd be interested in drawing them. The series, Kong: King Of Skull Island, was based on a book illustrated by Joe Devito and co-written by Brad Strickland.  The book was a sequel to the King Kong story, following the footsteps of Carl Denham's son, Vincent,  as he travels to Skull Island to locate his missing father. In the course of the story, we discover Kong's backstory. The first issue I drew was #3.

In the pages that follow, redrawn for the trade paperback, Kong's parents fight the dinosaur Gaw while young Kong watches:

Who knew that young Kong saw his parents killed in front of him? If he had been in Gotham City, he would have become Batman!

Joe devito, who came up with this concept is an excellent illustrator. He took time to point things out to me where my artwork needed improvement and really helped me look some different paths when approaching the characters. His book can be found HERE and the TPB ( that I drew) is HERE

INFLUENCES PART 8

One of the things I've learned as an artist is that not only do I learn from the illustrators that are around me, but I learn different things from different people. When I talked about Mike Edsey a few weeks ago, I mentioned the hands-on training he gave me. Rick Lundeen is a different story.

Rick Lundeen posing for the cover of 15 Minutes to Midnight

Rick Lundeen is one of the illustrators at Steve Edsey & Sons but his talents don't end with advertising art.  Back in 1999 Rick organized 6 of the illustrators in the studio, including myself, into creating an anthology of short comic stories. Together we self published Epoch #1. 

Under the Epoch label, Rick self published no less than 8 graphic novels afterward, each more interesting than the last:

He even went on to do a co-created book for Markosia:

Rick's artwork was featured at a gallery in Lake Villa, Illinois:

The most important thing that I picked up from Rick has absolutely nothing to do with the technical aspects of artwork. Rick taught me, through observing the way he works, how important it is to be a professional. I learned it's more important to get the work done early as opposed to just on time or late. Rick is one of the fastest illustrators I've ever seen. In trying to copy that aspect I discovered that I was no Rick Lundeen. Whereas he is able to put things down on paper quickly, things don't work out well for me when I do that. The importance, for myself, in slowing down and focusing on details.

Rick's advertising art can be found HERE, and his comic book art  HERE

THE CREATIVE PROCESS PART 7- COMPUTER APPLICATIONS

When people think "comic books" the images that usually come to mind are big muscle guys in tights fighting other big muscle guys in tights. Very rarely does someone think "interior design" or "city architecture". But when it comes to drawing a scene, or even looking at one, environments are vitally important.

If a character lives in an apartment it's important that it is the same from issue to issue. For example, back in the 1980's, Peter Parker lived at 410 Chelsea Street. The apartment was a one bedroom with a very distinctive decor - including  a giant spool as a table, a mounted swordfish on the wall, and a dime store indian in the corner:

When I was in high school, I built a 3 dimensional diorama of this apartment to draw from.

But what about now? Do I build all of the environments that I draw? No -but I do digitally construct some of them. There is a computer program that I use every once in a while called Google SketchUp . This program allows you to build environments or download existing ones. The nice thing is once you have the environment that you want, it can be moved around and viewed from different angles. 

A few years ago I built my living room and put it into a story:

I had also downloaded a cityscape for New York and put that into a couple of pages as well:

This was also done for my first Femforce story, which took place on a dock:

I don't use the program as much as I wish, primarily because I just don't have time to build something from scratch and I can't find what I need in the pre-existing models. But when I do use it, the environments help to add more credibility to the story.

LIFE DRAWING PART 6

In order to understand how to draw the figure, it's essential to understand anatomy. Every anatomy class begins with the skeleton. The skeleton is the frame of the human body and muscles are attached to it. Most art classrooms have a real skeleton or two to draw from:

One of the studies that I used to do was to take a photo of someone, create the outline of the person and draw the skeletal structure of the person inside:

Although complicated, without understanding the skeleton, the bones, and the way they move, it is impossible to understand the human body.

THE MIST

After I completed Project Raven for Cherie Donovan,  she wanted to do a story "Marvel style". For anyone who doesn't know what that means, the way Marvel Comics used to produce work was to have an artist draw from a synopsis rather than a script. Cherie had a poem that she wrote and thought that I should draw a story from it - anything I wanted. She emailed the poem over:

The Mist

The mist surrounds me, like a blanket over my eyes. It disguises the world around me, but covers it with a singular, whole beauty. I look around me, searching for something, anything, but all there is, is mist. The beautiful, full mist. It is neither perfect, nor full of error. It is nature at it’s best, but most hazardous.

            My enemies are there, in amongst it, but this fact seems to escape me. This is my native land. I know it more than I know myself. They are chasing me, but I sense their presence, and it does not frighten me. They are lost in this land, and I am found.

            The mist covers all that surrounds me; it is part of everything present now. I look at those that follow me, but they do not look back. This is my terrain, and is my world.

            I can sense their every move. I can hear their heartbeat and smell their very essence, and yet they still persist in hunting me. I am their prey, and they are the predator, and yet this is all just a game to them. To me, it is more than that, it is my life, and it is my survival.

            They search for me, but I have found them first. They are simply footsteps away, and yet they do not notice me, as I slip away from underneath their very eyes. It is them who are my prey, and I their predator, but I feel no need to hunt them, like they hunt me.

            I am one of them, and yet we are separate. We see the world in different ways, and live different lives. They see only destruction and death, where I see a chance for life, and I am one with it.

            I slip away, amongst the mists. She is my friend, and will guide me, where she tricks others. I am of the night, part of it’s life force is in me, and I am at peace with it. I am the she panther. No man shall tame me, I am free.

My first thought after reading Cherie's poem was:

"What the Hell is this?" 

Followed by 

"WTF am I going to do with this???" 

I have to note here that I absolutely adore Cherie, and there is nothing that I wouldn't do for her - including coming up with a couple of pages for this. She is a fantastic writer and a good friend. So I looked at it and got to work.

Instead of trying to map out my creative process, I'm just going to let the work speak for itself:

The mist surrounds me, like a blanket over my eyes. It disguises the world around me, but covers it with a singular, whole beauty. I look around me, searching for something, anything, but all there is, is mist. The beautiful, full mist. It is neither perfect, nor full of error. It is nature at it’s best, but most hazardous.

 My enemies are there, in amongst it, but this fact seems to escape me. This is my native land. I know it more than I know myself. They are chasing me, but I sense their presence, and it does not frighten me. They are lost in this land, and I am found.

            The mist covers all that surrounds me; it is part of everything present now. I look at those that follow me, but they do not look back. This is my terrain, and is my world.

            I can sense their every move. I can hear their heartbeat and smell their very essence, and yet they still persist in hunting me. I am their prey, and they are the predator, and yet this is all just a game to them. To me, it is more than that, it is my life, and it is my survival.

            They search for me, but I have found them first. They are simply footsteps away, and yet they do not notice me, as I slip away from underneath their very eyes. It is them who are my prey, and I their predator, but I feel no need to hunt them, like they hunt me.

 I am one of them, and yet we are separate. We see the world in different ways, and live different lives. They see only destruction and death, where I see a chance for life, and I am one with it.

            I slip away, amongst the mists. She is my friend, and will guide me, where she tricks others. I am of the night, part of it’s life force is in me, and I am at peace with it. I am the she panther. No man shall tame me, I am free.

This story appeared in the anthology, Eleventh Hour Vol. 1, published by Markosia in 2008.